Over the past four decades Richard Baron has made a name for himself as a pioneering developer of blighted urban neighborhoods. Baron’s firm, McCormack Baron Salazar has completed scores of projects in St. Louis and across the Midwest. As a native of Detroit, Mich., Baron came to Missouri in the late 1960s.

St. Louis Public Radio’s Adam Allington sat down with Baron at a housing conference of the Bipartisan Policy Center, where he asked him to elaborate on some of the development challenges—and similarities—between Detroit and St. Louis.